Tuesday, October 28:
Talked with R. about Buddhism and Christianity. Perception of the world much greater in Buddhism, which, however, has no monument like the Gospels, in which divinity is conveyed to our consciousness in a truly historic form. The advantage of Buddhism is that it derives from Brahmanism, whose dogmas can be put to use where science reveals gaps, so far-reaching are its symbols. The Christian teaching is, however, derived from the Jewish religion, and that is its dilemma. Christ’s suffering moves us more than Buddha’s fellow-suffering; we suffer with him and become Buddhas through contemplation. Christ wishes to suffer, suffers, and redeems us; Buddha looks on, commiserates, and teaches us how to achieve redemption. We laugh heartily at Mathesius’s saying, that priests do everything for their congregation, read masses, pray, etc. would they also go to hell for them? Also at the honest sins of Staupitz, who moves us with his address to Luther on the subject of providence. God is not angry with you, you are angry with him. All the profound words of these profoundly religious natures. The great folk quality of these personalities is balm to us. R. says, “All great people in Greece and in India were close to the folk culture, it was the Latin peoples who invented the word elegant.”
R. had a better night. Professor Nietzsche sends us his “Appeal to the Germans,” but who will be prepared to sign it? R. works. Our house affair is at last being taken in hand by Herr Feustel. Unexpected and startling visit from Herr Heinrich Brockhaus!
In the evening R. plays passages from Le Nozze di Figaro. “We Germans can be proud of showing the Italians their true nature, how it looks in German eyes.” The French text is important in this work, “for when an Italian abandons his folk qualities he becomes superficial; the Frenchman, who has no folk qualities, has something to offer in this sphere of comedy.” The importance of the masks in Italian comedy, in which speech is just an illustration of the masks, the miming is all-important. That does not work in tragedy, for suffering must be individual. The Italians were unable to produce tragedy. Continued with the biography of Luther, a profound impression. R. observes that scholasticism bears the same relation to Aristotle as French tragedy to Greek, a misinterpretation.